Personally, I found the audience had a good time watching the world premiere of Miguel Arteta’s dark comedy, YOUTH IN REVOLT, yesterday at the Scotia Bank Cinema. Even the people who spent a good twenty minutes complaining before the movie started that they had barely seen anything of note at TIFF so far this year and called YOUTH IN REVOLT, “filler” in their schedule, were not lost on the wit and nuances of this twisted comedy. Yet today, I received a press release from the film’s distributor, Alliance, that said that the film had been pushed back to January 2010 from its initial October 2009 release. There was no explanation attached so I can only assume that the film didn’t connect as much as they had hoped. I thought it was great but what do I know?
Brampton boy, Michael Cera, plays Nick Twisp, a boy in his later teens, an age hopefully Cera will get the chance to grow out of sooner rather than later. He is most certainly a youth in revolt but not in the way that you would think. Nick’s rebellion, at first anyway, is aimed at the young generation he cannot help be a part of. He listens to Sinatra, watches Fellini movies and scoffs at the boys and girls he grew up with. It all changes when he meets Sheeni (Portia Doubleday). She listens to Gainsbourg, watches Godard and steals Nick’s heart immediately. Nick lives in a neighbouring city and must get kicked out of his mom’s so that he can go live near Sheeni, with his dad and so he creates a bad-ass alter ego called Francois in his head to do what needs to be done in the name of love.
As Francois, Cera sports tight white pants, a silly mustache and smokes all the time. Cera has been desperate to show other sides of himself for ages now and he attacks this duality with gusto. You can argue that Cera always plays the same guy but I feel that he consistently brings different shades to the same character type that show his ability for subtlety and nuance and give way to his potential genius. I might have a tiny crush on him so there may be bias here but YOUTH IN REVOLT is his first serious play for progress in his career and he does not disappoint.
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